1787: The U.S. Constitutional Convention places voting qualifications in the hands of the states. Women in all states except New Jersey lose the right to vote.[1]

1790: The U.S. state of New Jersey grants the vote to "all free inhabitants," including women.[2]

1807: Women lose the right to vote in New Jersey, the last state to revoke the right.[1]

1838: Kentucky passes the first statewide woman suffrage law allowing female heads of household in rural areas to vote in elections deciding on taxes and local boards for the new county “common school” system. [3]

1870: The 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is adopted. The amendment holds that neither the United States nor any State can deny the right to vote "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude," leaving open the right of States to deny the right to vote on account of sex. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton oppose the amendment. Many of their former allies in the abolitionist movement, including Lucy Stone, support the amendment.[5]

1871: Victoria Woodhull speaks to the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, arguing that women have the right to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but the committee does not agree.[5]

1872: A suffrage proposal before the Dakota Territory legislature loses by one vote.[2]

1872: Susan B. Anthony registers and votes in Rochester, New York, arguing that the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives her that right. However, she is arrested a few days later. [5]Victoria Woodhull was the first female to run for President of the United States, nominated by the Equal Rights Party, with a platform supporting women's suffrage and equal rights.

1918: The jailed suffragists are released from prison. An appellate court rules all the arrests were illegal.[1]

1918: The Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which eventually granted women suffrage, passes the U.S. House with exactly a two-thirds vote but loses by two votes in the Senate. Jeannette Rankin opens debate on it in the House, and President Wilson addresses the Senate in support of it.[1][2]

1919: In January, the National Women's Party lights and guards a "Watchfire for Freedom." It is maintained until the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution passes the U.S. Senate on June 4.[1]

1920: The Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, stating, "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.[1][18]

1920: In the case of Hawke v. Smith, anti-suffragists file suit against the Ohio legislature, but the Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of Ohio's ratification process.[2]

1924: Native American women played a vital role in this change, but are still unable to reap the benefits until 4 years later on June 24, 1924 when the American government grants citizenship to Native Americans through the Indian Citizenship Act. However many states nonetheless make laws and policies which prohibit Native Americans from voting and many Native Americans are effectively barred from voting until 1948.

1952: The race restrictions of the 1790 Naturalization Law are repealed by the McCarran-Walter Act, giving first generation Japanese Americans including Japanese American women citizenship and voting rights.

1964: The Twenty-fourth Amendment is ratified by two-thirds of the states, formally abolishing poll taxes and literacy tests which were heavily used against African-American and poor white women and men.

1965: The Voting Rights Act of 1965 strenuously prohibits racial discrimination in voting, resulting in greatly-increased voting by African American women and men.

^""An Act to establish a system of Common Schools in the State of Kentucky" Chap. 898". Acts of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Frankfort, KY: A.G. Hodges State Printer. December Session, 1837. p. 282.Check date values in: |date= (help)